How stereotypes affect our performances

Published 11:41 pm, Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Social psychologist Claude Steele offers us fascinating research about how stereotypes affect our performance and how we view others in his new book "Whistling Vivaldi and other clues to how stereotypes affect us."

For instance, a female who takes a math test could underperform just by believing the stereotype that females aren't as good as males in math, or a white male could underperform in same subject based on the stereotype that Asian males are better at math.

Steele said the focus of the book is to offer a broader look at what makes social identity, like race, important to us and society, that it's not just the prejudicial attitudes of others but the contingencies that go with them.

In one story, Steele described how New York Times columnist Brent Staples, when he was a young graduate student in Chicago, transformed the reaction of people passing him in the street.

At first they turned away, worried that he was the stereotypical violent African American male. Then, he began to whistle Vivaldi and Beatles songs, and saw "the tension" drain from their faces.

Steele also described the research results for a golf putting test.

In one instance, both African American and white males were told the putting test would measure some intelligence. The whites performed better. In the second test, the test takers were told it would measure athletic ability. The African Americans performed better.

The two groups were fighting what Steele calls a "threat in the air."

He writes that these self-fulfilling reactions to internal stereotypes, which are tied to identity, make a difference "in how we shape our lives, from the way we perform in certain situations to the career and friends we choose."

Identity threats play an important role in society's social problems like race, social class, gender, and achievement gaps that plague society, he writes. And that the threats impact a wide range of human functions.

"One of the most important implications of his research that I talk about in class is that even though people think stereotypes are no longer relevant, this research shows that stereotypes are relevant and have strong implications," Barrett said.

The issue, Barrett said, is "what is salient in a person's mind when they are performing a task."

Barrett said this research is important for anyone who evaluates another's performance, such as professors and teachers. I think it's important for all of us.

Whistling Vivaldi was such a stark example.

"The classical music shattered the image and allowed them to react differently," Barrett said.

What is central to the book, according to Steele, is the impact of stereotypes. When each of us who fulfills a stereotype, whether it's being a woman, poor, old, rich, or black, we know it, we know what people could think and that we could be judged and it can affect our performance.

"If we want to overcome underperformance, if we want to open the door for many stereotyped students to learn and prosper in society, we should, in addition to focusing on skill and knowledge, also focus on reducing these threats in schools, classrooms, workplaces, even basketball gyms."